Distributed computer networks, such as the Internet and organizational intranets, provide users the ability to exchange information with other users at a much faster pace than previous methods, such as for example, saving a file to a data storage disc and physically delivering the disc to another's computing system. Within these distributed environments, a communication medium is established between at least two computers that enables information to be transferred by way of electronic mail, file sharing or other conventional information transfer mechanisms. While distributed computing certainly has its benefits over prior methods for information exchange, many of the same drawbacks realized with these previous practices have carried over into the distributed computing world.
One such problem is authentication as it relates to the ability of recipient users to view and manipulate information sent from other users. That is, there exists a security concern that a user that receives or accesses information is indeed a user that is authenticated to receive or access that information. Another similar problem relates to whether the user sending the information is really the entity that the user claims to be. Both of these concerns are based on a single underlying concept—identification. Indeed, current systems, regardless of whether the systems embody a single, stand-alone computer or multiple computers interconnected within a distributed environment, do not provide an identification framework that may be used throughout the system by all resources implemented thereon.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present invention has been developed.